POLITICAL COMFORT ZONES

 2016 

 by R. W. Touchton

The Truth Will Make You Free.

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com·fort zone

noun

1.     a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress.

“times when we must act beyond our comfort zones”

 

As a kid, when we went to the barber shop, I sat in a booster seat of the big porcelain and leather chair to get what we called my ears lowered”. Before television became popular, we listened to a radio playing in the shop, while we were getting our haircut. I listen closely to a man who called himself Paul Harvey and his radio news blogs/reports called: Paul Harvey News. As I grew, I became fond of Harvey’s reports because he gave a more in-depth detail than what was given to us by the newspapers, on radio, and early television. He always ended his reports with . . . “and now you have the rest of the story.”   The rest of the story in many cases gave an entirely different light on the news story or the events in time which gave us a better understanding of the context of those situations. He was truly a newscaster that wasn’t just interested in the headline or the “hook” to grab people’s attention.   One of my favorite broadcasts of his A Letter from God. 

 My mother used to say: “Don’t believe a thing you hear and only half of what you see.” Before I move on, I want to give an illustration of what appears to be and what is not always the total truth but an opinionated reality.

 Picture a caveman with his club raised growling at a crouched sabretooth tiger that appears to be attacking the man.  This appears to be a very animalistic view of man, a survival of the fittest picture.  However, let's zoom the lens out and bring it into the frame of the picture and we see behind the cave dweller, his woman, holding their cave child.  Ah hah, this changes the entire concept and context of the picture.  It’s this that I want all people who have a political view, especially if they’re media-driven, to examine closely ALL THE INFORMATION; and not just to feed on the Headlines and sound bites.

 As a popular TV show stated: “THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE” . . . but there are imitations of truth, and what may have been told to us as the truth, we may find to be a fabrication or clever lie.

 Fabrication is a lie told when someone submits a statement as truth, without knowing for certain whether it actually is true. Although the statement may be possible or plausible, it is not based on fact. Rather, it is something made up, or it is a misrepresentation of the truth.

What is the problem of The Modern Day Political Movement?

 The News Media is supposed to be nonpartisan in its reporting. They’re supposed to report the news and give detailed information to enlighten the public of what is (or was) happening during a situation. They must be like an attorney in a court of law, presenting the facts only in the case. They should not lead the voter in political situations, but only report the facts and let the voters decide for themselves.

However, since there are so many news outlets, they have become competitive and “eye-catching” with their reporting.  They rely on shock factors with headlines and Sound bites in the electronic media to sensationalize an event so people will look to an individual news source for the report. However, many people don’t research and look deep into the report and are satisfied with the headline or sound bite for making up their minds. At this time, we wonder since we were tricked into reading or viewing their report, just how much truth is behind the story.

Then the patronizing of Parties have come to fruition, a political group will actually feed and leak stories to the media and then the party becomes a viable source to the news outlet.  When this happens, the source may not realize that they have become victims to a controlled outlet by the particular party (I’m just trying to be fair by giving the sources the benefit of doubt, although, I’m sure most of the sources are totally aware).  Because of the money behind these relationships, much of the news media has become the mouthpiece for that party.  And for 30 to 40 years the mainstream media have become not only controlled by the Democratic Party associates but has been its mouthpiece.  Journalism is no longer the art.

Here is a link to a report that shows the trend of most media agencies that most of us view or listen to.

Here’s How Liberal Or Conservative Major News Sources Really Are

From Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-your-preferred-news-outlet-says-about-your-political-ideology-2014-10

If you’ll notice that the average partisan leans to the liberal (left) although there are a few that are more biased to the right or conservative. However, this is good since the mainstream media leans to the liberal left, a balance is given as Harvey would say, as: “The rest of the story”.

You may ask, what is my point? Well, that is that the media for the large part is swayed to a political view.  The people who view or listen to the outlets are drawn to them because of the familiarity and comfortable perception.  Although you might think well, there are a few that lean to the conservative right. This is true and one of them even uses the slogan, fair and balanced, which is mostly because they offer the alternative, not that they are totally fair and balanced unto themselves.   However, I do see and hear from some of them scolding members of their own party, whereas not seen so much from the media sources that have aligned to the liberal left.

Let’s look at the art of photoshopping, in the light of not shopping for photos, but distorting them to give a different effect other than the natural one the camera saw.

Here is a famous picture on the internet of a morph of Bill and Hillary Clinton, affectionately known as Billary

If you notice, this is not exactly what the camera saw, although the same camera may have seen both separate images before they were merged or morphed as one.

Here is another George W. Bush and Barack Obama morphed combo.

Therefore, since the liberal press has been influenced so much by Hollywood, who are masters of giving us illusions, they airbrush and make things look either pretty or different from the way they really are.  They do this in their reporting for any of their favorites. They wash the ugly negative part of the celebrity or politician’s life. Whereas they do the opposite with a popular person who may represent another party, even if it’s making up the story. Since the opposing news media outlets have to be careful and report the detailed truth, the Left only reply with “Republican says; or Republicans do”

This is a visual example of what is also done in Media Reporting.  The lens may not have been altered in the clip but the clip/file itself may have been edited by taking it out of context details to give a different point of view, although the story may not have been totally made up.

We’ve experienced a situation on the weekend (9/11/16) where Hillary Clinton collapsed in New York while attending a 9/11 memorial ceremony.

We were given TWO types of reports: one from the mainstream liberal media reported that she was exhausted from the heat and shown a clip of being helped into an SUV and the report went on to mention that she was taken to her daughter’s apartment in New York where she rested a couple hours and later was shown leaving Chelsea’s apartment, smiling and waving like she is okay.

The other report showed a longer version of the clip of her getting into the SUV, where she actually collapsed.  The report challenged the heat exhaustion story since the temperature at 9:30 a.m. (time of collapse) was 79, the humidity 79% at 8:51AM, 79 and the humidity 54% at 9:51am. Notice that the humidity because of passing clouds and winds was closer to 54% by the time of the collapse.

New York Weather History for September 11, 2016

Show weather for:  Previous 24 hours September 13, 2016 September 12, 2016 September 11, 2016 September 10, 2016 September 9, 2016 September 8, 2016 September 7, 2016 September 6, 2016 September 5, 2016 September 4, 2016 September 3, 2016 September 2, 2016 September 1, 2016 August 31, 2016 August 30, 2016 August 29, 2016

The concern of the first reporting was that she is okay, and it wasn’t a huge deal.

The concern of the second report was that it was a big deal since a few days earlier she had a coughing spell during her Labor Day speech at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio.  The concern of the second report was in keeping with the alert that Hillary Clinton’s health may not be as well as her people want to report. The idea that the report after the event on the 15^th anniversary of 9/11 was that she had Pneumonia, made inquiring minds ask if the coughing spell on September 5^th (Labor Day) was instead of the stated allergies, that the real fact was that she had pneumonia as far back as then.  This becomes a problem as we the people are not fairly given the undivided truth of the events that occur in our world and country. Instead, the stories a presented from a controlled storytelling source.

At the beginning of my political life, I was not really interested in politics and I was a part of a generation that seem to follow the whelms of the everyday people, as I grew up in the fifties & sixties in a generation who largely seemed to have a revolution against those who wanted us to be responsible citizens in society. My generation appeared to have a better idea, like marijuana, mind drugs, sex, rock-n-roll and make love, “power to the people” and the peace all day, as these would seem to solve all of the problems of the world.

However, as we got older, and graduated from our high school and college days, we realized that these things didn’t solve the problems of the world, as we understood how much more complex it was, as the system made us more aware as we were told by other leaders that a revolution was needed, and like the oysters with the Walrus, we’re led out of our comfort zone, talked about worldly things until too late, we were eaten up.

We realized that it’s all about “Getting our Heads” as John Lennon, one of these sixties/seventies musicians, put it and wrote a political song called MIND GAMES:  My favorite verse shows how this idea has become perpetual in our lives.

“We’re playing those mind games together
Pushing the barriers planting seeds
Playing the mind guerrilla
Chanting the Mantra peace on earth
We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil
Doing the mind guerrilla
Some call it magic, the search for the grail

Love is the answer and you know that for sure
Love is a flower
You got to let it, you gotta let it grow” .  . .

“So keep on playing those mind games together
Faith in the future out of the now
You just can’t beat on those mind guerrillas
Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind
Yeah, we’re playing those mind games forever
Projecting our images in space and in time”

When I first heard this song, the phrase that stuck with me was:

“Pushing the barriers, planting seeds

Playing the mind guerrilla”

Of course, I realized John believed in his own words as he also was planting seeds to the listeners of his song, with “Love is the answer” (ALL YOU NEED) “Love is a flower,” “you got to let it grow.”

Although I agree with him to an extent, love is a strong force (by design) with us as some type of love is a motivating force between us, but it’s not always the answer. Love cannot be understood in a general sense.  The Greek has 4 different words that state what kind of love is being spoken about. Our English language uses a sentence structure and modifiers to connote what type of Love to which we might be referring.

For instance, in the passage below (which is misquoted too often) a love (many would call it lust) love for money is the basis for all kinds of evil.

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” 1 Timothy 6.10

(many take it as “money alone” but the Apostle stated the LOVE of (for) Money is the ROOT of ALL KINDS OF EVIL.

Some say when a politician lies to get power, many of us assume ALL politicians lie and we merely surrender the power to them with our vote for the individual.

If we really cared and wanted to do something about the problems of the world, we would have to be in a group of people that would research and see why the world is getting worse. Therefore, I switched to a group that did just that. What I began doing was to look more towards alternative new sources instead of the normal, everyday available sources.

I discovered that too often with headlines and sound bites, our lazy generations now don’t research and trust the media to give us the truth.  However, too often it’s not, or the truth is slanted and taken out of context to enforce the catching eyes and ears.

There is another passage that makes this more understandable:

2 Timothy 4:3

(3) For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

The "itching ears" is an exceptional term from Paul in the New Testament of the Bible. Because of sensationalism, we have become numbed to hear what we want to hear, and if we hear it, nothing else matters. We hear click words such as liar, racism, fascism, thief, and even murder. Then to be sure, we’re shown a video clip out of context to support the fabrication of the terms above, and we swallow it up only instead of for our minds to be swallowed up as the oysters were with the Walrus.

How to discern truth from false information

·        Learn how to communicate with your intuition because it will not lie to you. Your intuition is the light within you that gives you an awareness that is beyond what words can describe. It is a knowingness that comes without explanation or proof, and takes place at the cellular level and beyond. When it comes to interpreting your intuition, you should be careful because even though your intuition will not lie to you, your interpretation of it may not be right.

·        If the information does not resonate with you, make sure you ponder about it and not just accept that all of it is false. Information that does not resonate with you can sometimes mean that you are not yet ready for it. You should also ponder about information that does resonate with you. Doing this will help you understand why it does not resonate with you.

·        Learn to communicate with your higher self. Direct communication with your higher self is rare because it takes tremendous discipline of the mind and body. Your higher self will usually communicate with you through symbols to prevent infringing upon your free will. Once you learn how to communicate with your higher self, finding the path of truth will become easier.

·        When information is true to you, it will sometimes cause a tingling or a shivering feeling throughout your body. Sometimes you may feel a strong emotional feeling in your heart. The tingling feeling you experience when you hear something that contains truth is all the cells in your body simultaneously agreeing on a new concept of truth.

How to Discern Truth from False Information

However, we don’t want to involve all emotion, That’s what the mainstream media are depending on.  They have insisted on many instances of emotional divides with situations such as protests for a shooting of a particular race or the killing of police officers.

We want to use reason and logic during our research while listening to what has been told to us. Instead of just soaking in the information, in our minds, we should say: “Wait A minute . . .” 

We need to understand that if one party digs up dirt (gossip, bad information) on another or another party’s candidate, and if the same is for the members of the offending party, but ignored or morphed it into something else, above, then we need to use our head and not our emotions. When these things happen, we need to understand that a double standard is being set.  We should not want a candidate because he or she is the first of a kind?  I’m a believer that any qualified person (includes knowledge of what’s going on both domestically and internationally, and what needs to be done to protect this country) should be given the chance to run; and that this should be the foremost and not the color of their skin or the person’s gender. The latter is an emotional decision and not a logical one.

When these things happen, we need to look to the other side of the information even if we get it from sources to which we don’t normally view or listen. Keep in mind the agenda of most of the mainstream media is HEADLINES & Sound bites to get our attention. Then when we read the stories, we find that it is just an extension of the Headline, rather than both sides of the story, like the news media is supposed to report.  Too many of the stories we hear on TV and read in our newspapers are totally out of context and context makes a world of difference. We as the voters need to research out and check what is being told to us to be sure it is the truth or a lie.

We now call this "fact-checking," but we listen to the press that represents a certain party for fact-checking. If that be the case, there has to be some bias in the reporting or to how much research was used for the fact-checking process.

Below is believed to be a list of Nonpartisan Fact-Checkers.

FactCheck.org A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, the nonpartisan, nonprofit. Fact check.org monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. The site’s goal is to “apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.”

OpenSecrets.org It’s not exactly a fact-checking website, but this website from the Center for Responsive Politics does keep track of the money in politics. The site describes itself as “the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its elect on elections and public policy.”

PolitiFact.com A project of the Tampa Bay Times and its partners. It intends to “help you find the truth in politics. . . . We research public statements and rate their accuracy as True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False, False and Pants on Fire.” In 2009, PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

ProCon.org ProCon.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. It has no government affiliations. It provides resources for critical thinking in order to educate without bias. It expresses no opinions. ProCon.org researches controversial and important issues and presents them in a balanced, comprehensive, straightforward, and primarily pro-con format.

Snopes.com Not strictly limited to politics, Snopes is a website that attempts to debunk and validate urban legends, Internet rumors, and other stories of uncertain origin. It is an independent entity owned by its operators, Barbara and David Mikkelson, who say they receive no funding in any form.

The Fact Checker A blog from the Washington Post, The Fact Checker checks statements by politicians and political advocacy groups. It regularly doles out Pinocchios based on politicians’ statements.

TruthOrFiction.com This site says of itself, “Get the truth about rumors, inspirational stories, virus warnings, hoaxes, scams, humorous tales, pleas for help, urban legends, prayer requests, calls to action, and other forwarded emails.” Tee.